D2 brake kit

[AtomicRex]

The RRP isnt exactly the same....and if notice K-Sport are willing to do loads of group buys.  They are offering massive discounts over the RRP 40% +, which has splatterings of cheapening the brand.  Dont get me wrong, I participate in Group buys but this allows me to pass on the savings, and so the discounts are around 10-15%
 
The majority of the copy brakes are exactly that.  They are all copies of the original AP calipers.  The reason I went with HiSpec is because they have a good reputation, and on stripping one, it is well put together and is built to stand the rigors of road and race.  I was originally running KADs and they were great out on track, lasted me 2 seasons, and then TonyC on a further season.  However only HiSpec had invested into building a rear caliper that had an internal handbrake, and it works!!
 
I didnt say they were "cheap crap"  I did say they were cheap and the evidence was simple, we stipped a set of 8 pots for a Nissan Skyline.  They are only a year old, and have been used for track work, and they are in awful condition.

[TRex]

Lol, some group buy that is... \'click click\'.....

[shaunwil]

Sorry with the cheap crap comment. I get very annoyed when people use the dyson technique of sales. Slag off everything else and say nothing about their own product. I understand this isn\'t what jon is saying :2Rolleyes

I was seriously interested in your rear setup with the new kit because of the handbrake system although k-sport had had issues with a similar system and removed it.

What makes the AP kit so much better ? (coming from the design engineer in me)

Shaun

[shaunwil]

Lol, some group buy that is... \'click click\'.....

That is the start of the auction price. Be interesting to see what they go for at end of auction.

Shaun

[MaLicE]

funny how a trader says someone elses products are bad lol, there are pleanty of reports of pretty much every brake kit out there that have had bad faults...

k sport and d2 are made in the same factory im pretty sure...

if you can afford it grex etc are goooood kits all made by alcon which are better than brembo and ap by all accounts.

[MaLicE]

oh and im sure someone on here bought the atomicrex or hispec kit and the rear handbrake mech needed alot of work to make it work...

[marco]

oh and im sure someone on here bought the atomicrex or hispec kit and the rear handbrake mech needed alot of work to make it work...

do you have a link to that? i was thinking about a set of these on mine, but I would like to know what I would be getting myself into if it needs fabbing.

[marco]

Actually I think I have found it, did you mean the post near the bottom of this thread? Or is there another one?

[skybusr34]

http://www.mazdarotaryclub.com/forums/showthread.php?t=44557&highlight=burnout&page=22

[Colin]

I have done some more reading on a few forums, going to give them a miss and buy a better quailty kit.

[skybusr34]

I have done some more reading on a few forums, going to give them a miss and buy a better quailty kit.

put up links dude. im just about to send money . interesrted in negative feed back

[clive]

Tough one for me to get involved in as I am in the trade "however" having been around for a long time, and with my Clive hat on I felt I should at least tell you that the brake kit question is a real barrel of worms!!

First up to answer the initial D2 question,

We have had numerous mails from this Chinese company as did others for a few months asking if we would be a distributor but declined, eventually Apex picked them up (good luck)

This was after company near us in Sittingbourne who did have them for a long time gave it up as the warranty claims nearly killed them off!

K-SPORT shock absorbers and 4/6/8/10 POT brake system kits are made in Taiwan,

Now I don\'t know much about K-Sport but a quick search shows it\'s not a very favored brand but then "you get what you pay for"

I can tell you though that we “were”  the U/K distributor for a Taiwan company called Winner power (marketed as HP Racing in the States) and sold quite a few kits to the Cosa boys with no problems however we dropped them like a brick after we had reports from elsewhere in the world that they were having a disc cracking problem,

Next up is Geoff Bedding of Hi Spec and all I can say is that I hope that the quality is there as it wasn\'t a few years back,

My ex business partner got real miffed when Hi Spec wanted us to be their fitting center and disagreed and declined as I realised we would become the first in line for unhappy customers as we had fitted the product, why ?

Because we knew that they had had Discs explode, indeed a guy with a beemer ended up in a lamp post!,  also we used to look after Paz\'s  "Fast Car" mag Scooby that came back to us a total of five times for leaking calipers etc on his ill fitting kit !, having said that many are very happy with their product these days at least on track.

Many of these “wonderful” big brake kits have very dubious looking Disc\'s, “material wise”  and the billet calipers are very flimsy and lack correct dust seals to keep muck out, plus some don\'t even have stainless pistons meaning they will be prone to seizing on our salt laden roads,

My personal feeling is that if your racing these cheaper kits are worth a go , after all you should be in a car that has a full cage, full harness etc and should your brakes fail you should only end up in a barrier, trust me total brake failure isn’t nice,

I had this happen during practice for a race going down the back “straight” into the left hander at Lydden Hill and smacked the inside bank, however the road is different, especially in a quick FD and rather than a bank you could well take out other normal road users  or pedestrians,

If you look at a Brembo caliper it is a very robust caliper using very thick castings unlike the easy to make machine em up out of billet made from a block of god knows what!

Lastly there\'s nothing personal in what I\'m about to say, and I hate to say it, but if you buy something this safety related on a group buy and god forbid something goes really horribly wrong, who would you sue for compensation ?

Even with a straight warranty claim where no harm was done you would need to go back to the "company" and not the manufacturer as you would not have brought the goods from the manufacturer ,

I know a lot won\'t like the above, but sorry I flinch when people talk about bolting potentially lethal things on our very quick motor cars, other cars maybe but then a Saxo isn\'t that quick is it.  

As I say, "you get what you pay for" and yes I know its tough if you haven\'t got lots of money for the real stuff, but the saving grace here is that the FC and FD has not got a bad braking system as standard and with just pads and Discs it can be a whole lot better, Safely.

[Colin]

put up links dude. im just about to send money . interesrted in negative feed back

I never actually found anything saying avoid etc but read loads of people saying the quailty was just not as good as other kits and that it was worth paying a bit extra.
 
I am thinking about buying hi-specs now, I have bought them before and was impressed with the quailty and they were a helpful company.

[AtomicRex]

Our rear brake kits fit first time....and without any issues what so ever.
 
We have a kit on TonyC\'s car, as well as 3 kits on our own cars.
 
The standard handbrake has 3 cables, the first is attached between the handbrake lever and a three-way plate, and the other two are attached between the plate and the individual callipers.  These are now changed and modified by ourselves to fit directly into the plate and attach to the new callipers.
 
There have been two slight problems with our rear calliper set up, and unfortunately with the first two kits.  The first problem was with Jan-Tore, as his handbrake cables were the wrong size, this is why we now modify them in house.  The second was with Vest Racing, where he took a non handbrake kit, but the person I had packing the kit mixed up the rotors, bells and brackets from the handbrake kit.  This again has been rectified.  It was just a shame that both kits were sent overseas.

But we learnt from the mistakes, and they now fit without any fault
 
 
 
 
The new handbrake cables that are supplied by HiSpec are modified by ourselves, and fit within the standard

[AtomicRex]

Good comments Clive
 
And I have been bugged by the XYZ people trying to sell me their brake kits and coilovers.
 
The biggest problem with buying Far Eastern copy items is that you are going to be unsure of the aluminium content within their billet.  Aluminium grades can vary by so much, and we have found a lot of the cheaper stuff is made from high tin contents or recycled aluminium.  Try welding the stuff...its next to impossible!
 
Im not trying to bitch about all items that come from the far east.....but mainly the cheap stuff.  This is why 95% of the items we use on our cars is made here in the UK.
 
It is also a very valid point about public liability insurance....we are insured up to £10milion pounds, as Im sure Clive and other specialists are.  Not sure where you stand with a group buy though...so I can but echo Clive\'s worries.
 
With regards to HiSpecs issues...they did have a shaky start....but have overcome this, and the fact that Radical, Caterham, Westfield and of course us use their callipers as standard items I think speaks volumes.